'Absurd' Sergei Magnitsky trial adjourned

Russia has adjourned the fraud trial against dead lawyer Sergei Magnitsky,
after his mother called on lawyers to boycott the "illegal"
hearing.

Sergei Magnitsky's grave in MoscowPhoto: AP

3:16PM GMT 28 Jan 2013

The controversial trial has been moved to February 18, a spokesman for Moscow's Tverskoi district court said, adding that the court had also appointed defence to represent Magnitsky's side after the lawyers for his family twice refused to participate.

Magnitsky's death aged 37 in 2009 of untreated pancreatitis after almost a year in pretrial detention became a symbol of prison abuse in modern Russia and led to a fresh row between Moscow and Washington.

Critics say that with Russia's decision to prosecute Magnitsky after his death – a rare move which the prosecution argues is sanctioned by the law – the case entered the realm of the absurd.

Ahead of Monday's hearing, Magnitsky's mother released a letter calling on all lawyers working in Moscow to boycott the trial.

"I will consider participation in this illegal action cooperation with those who violate law and human rights, aiding a crime against my son," she wrote.

Nearly two years after his death, Russian authorities reopened Magnitsky's case despite protests from his family.

Amnesty International said the trial would set a "dangerous precedent" in Russia's deteriorating rights record.

"This posthumous prosecution is farcical, but unfortunately also deeply sinister," John Dalhuisen, the rights watchdog's programme director for Europe and Central Asia, said in a statement.

"Even in Stalin's time, the authorities did not prosecute people who were dead," Magnitsky's former employer, the investment fund Hermitage Capital has said.

But Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who is a lawyer by training, defended the trial, saying authorities did not plan to accuse the dead lawyer of committing crimes.

"But there are posthumous procedures spelled out in criminal procedure law, every country has them. This has to be done," Medvedev told CNN in comments posted on the government website Sunday.

He also downplayed Magnitsky's role, saying he never fought against corruption.

"He was a common corporate accountant or lawyer who served his boss," he said, referring to Hermitage Capital head, William Browder, who is now in London and being tried in absentia.

Before his arrest, Magnitsky said he had uncovered a $235 million tax scam by state officials against Hermitage Capital Management.

After he was detained, he was charged with the very crimes he claimed to have uncovered and was placed in pretrial detention.

Late last year the United States passed the so-called Magnitsky Act which blacklists Russian officials believed to have been implicated in the lawyer's death.

Moscow retaliated in kind and also banned US citizens from adopting Russian orphans.

The only Russian prison official put on trial for negligence over Magnitsky's death was acquitted in late December, after President Vladimir Putin said Magnitsky was not tortured and died of a "heart attack."